Tag Archives: customer satisfaction

If there was ever a time to call your executive and leadership teams together for some mission-critical thinking, this is that time. I am slightly biased toward making those process-oriented meetings but that’s besides the point. The market – globally, nationally, locally as well as from a unique, individual consumer standpoint – is taking a beating. A mugging really. The capital we thought we had to conduct business with is not there the way we thought it was months ago when all we feared was a recession. With recession eclipsed by fears of a deeper, longer meltdown, it’s time to think and talk about survival of the fittest.

Who’s Fittest?

How is fitness defined in your industry? We know stock price alone isn’t the answer. If that were the case, nobody would be considered fit today. Is it profitability? Productivity? Innovation? Customer satisfaction? How is the strongest competitor in your field or in your market deemed the strongest? How long can they sustain in a down economy?

You must be able to define fitness and bear in mind that definition will vary from one industry to another. What makes a great hospital does not make a great publication or a great restaurant or a great garment factory.

There is an argument to be made for reading Colins’ Built to Last before the end of the month. Preserve the core and change the tactics and process as it is called for in order to adapt to this new environment.

Build On Core Competencies & Core Processes That Work

Want to widen your process-orientation? Want to document, design and implement more efficiency, productivity and innovation? Start by pinning down and understanding what you do best. Start by identifying what your core competencies are and deeply understanding what makes them so. Take an inventory of what it is you do best and how it is that came to pass. Do not change a thing in these areas right now if you can help it – except to do more if you can.

Is there some aspect of your core competencies that can be expanded to other areas of your work, product-line or service? Can you become the outsource provider of these services to another firm? To a competitor? Can you market and promote your core competencies in new ways? Can you take them into new markets and embed what you do in an entirely new supply-chain? The point is to identify what you have 100% confidence in and do as much of it as possible during tough times. This is your greatest survival tactic. Don’t under-estimate your need to survive right now. Read Zook’s Profit from the Core before the end of the month while you’re at it.

Balancing Your Scorecard

As I mentioned earlier in this post, you must begin identifying your most meaningful performance metrics. Collectively, we do an abysmal job of this. We rely too much on financial measures or quality measures or employee satisfaction measures or none at all. Too often, we measure one dimension of our business at the exclusion of others. If you haven’t already done so, pick up Niven’s Balanced Scorecard. The implementation of a balanced set of metrics can be relatively straightforward and will do wonders for you if you can stick to it.

Do yourself and your organization a favor this week and make a commitment to measuring at least one from each of the four dimensions of: customer satisfaction; financial performance; internal process improvement; and employee growth. If you make this commitment today while times are tough and while your employees are looking to your for leadership, then you will instill in them an abiding belief in your ability to see and appreciate the big picture. You will also be setting in motion the machinery that will set you far apart – so far as to be in a different league – from your competitors when the dust of this economy settles. You will thrive.

Do These Things

Leverage your process improvements, your new skills and your deep desire to outlast the bad news of late. Bring your people together. Have frank and hard-working sessions together. Plan like professionals. Work more and work smarter. Apply your process-orientation as widely as possible and make a commitment to measuring what matters. Then what matters will get done in some surprising ways and you’ll be glad you made these commitments 1, 2 and 3 years from now – long after your competition has thrown in the towel.

Make The Tough Decisions

As you plan, apply yourselves to the core of your business, and begin measuring your performance in new ways, I assure you that weaknesses will become apparent. You will certainly be faced with difficult decisions to make. Resist the impulse of simply making deep cuts. If you manage to discover you have resources at your disposal, think of them as an investment before you think of them as a savings. This may, in fact, be the best time in your industry to provide exceptional customer service or it may be best to expand into a new market. The very people you may have otherwise shed may be the best people to take you in a new direction. Lead outside the box. If you do have people to let go of and you cannot justify any other conclusion, make the decision, be compassionate about it and help everyone through the transition. By all means, keep your high performers who “get” your vision and mission.